So I turned to 4,307,910, the first Drafting Dan.
The drawings were a delight. I couldn’t have planned it better myself; this boy really had it. I admired the economy of the linkages and the clever way the circuits had been used to reduce the moving parts to a minimum. Moving parts are like the vermiform appendix; a source of trouble to be done away with whenever possible.
He had even used an electric typewriter for his keyboard chassis, giving credit on the drawing to an IBM patent series. That was smart, that was engineering: never reinvent something that you can buy down the street.
I had to know who this brainy boy was, so I turned to the papers.
It was D. B. Davis.
After quite a long time I phoned Dr. Albrecht. They rounded him up and I told him who I was, since my office phone had no visual.
“I recognized your voice,” he answered. “Hi, there, son. How are you getting along with your new job?”
“Well enough. They haven’t offered me a partnership yet.”
“Give them time. Happy otherwise? Find yourself fitting back in?”
“Oh, sure! If I had known what a great place here and now is I’d have taken the Sleep earlier. You couldn’t hire me to go back to 1970.”
“Oh, come now! I remember that year pretty well. I was a kid then on a farm in Nebraska. I used to hunt and fish. I had fun. More than I have now.”
“Well, to each his own. I like it now. But look, Doc, I didn’t call up just to talk philosophy; I’ve got a little problem.”
“Well, let’s have it. It ought to be a relief; most people have big problems.”
“Doc? Is it at all possible for the Long Sleep to cause amnesia?”
He hesitated before replying. “It is conceivably possible. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a case, as such. 1 mean unconnected with other causes.”
“What are the things that cause amnesia?”
“Any number of things. The commonest, perhaps, is the patient’s own subconscious wish. He forgets a sequence of events, or rearranges them, because the facts are unbearable to him. That’s a functional amnesia in the raw. Then there is the old-fashioned knock on the head-amnesia from trauma. Or it might be amnesia through suggestion . . . under drugs or hypnosis. What’s the matter, bub? Can’t you find your checkbook?”
“It’s not that. So far as I know, I’m getting along just fine now. But I can’t get some things straight that happened before I took the Sleep . . . and it’s got me worried.”
“Mmm … any possibility of any of the causes I mentioned?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “Uh, all of them, except maybe the bump on the head . . . and even that might have happened while I was drunk.”
“I neglected to mention,” he said dryly, “the commonest temporary amnesia-pulling a blank while under the affluence of alcohol. See here, son, why don’t you come see me and we’ll talk it over in detail? If I can’t tag what is biting you-I’m not a psychiatrist, you know-I can turn you over to a hypno-analyst who will peel back your memory like an onion and tell you why you were late to school on the fourth of February your second-grade year. But he’s pretty expensive, so why not give me a whirl first?”
I said, “Cripes, Doe, I’ve bothered you too much already and you are pretty stuffy about taking money.”
“Son, I’m always interested in my people; they’re all the family I have.”
So I put him off by saying that I would call him the first of the week if I wasn’t straightened out. I wanted to think about it anyhow.
Most of the lights went out except in my office; a Hired Girl, scrubwoman type, looked in, twigged that the room was still occupied, and rolled silently away. I still sat there.
Presently Chuck Freudenberg stuck his head in and said, “I thought you left long ago. Wake up and finish your sleep at home.”
I looked up. “Chuck, I’ve got a wonderful idea. Let’s buy a barrel of beer and two straws.”